AC vs Planetside PVP

[Unstoppable]

This post will compare the PVP between Planetside and Asheron's Call by concentrating on the main strengths and weaknesses of the two. It will be kept as short as possible to maximize reader output.

Asheron's Call
Pros:
1)PVE/Phat loot, Low sys reqs, character customization.
2)Fun pvp with right levels/gear. Gameplay is unique. Enviroment interaction. Cool gear/items that are no drop.

Cons:
1)PVE will eventually get boring. Low sys req but some do not want to play repetitive combat. Customization led to handful of classes being supreme then others. Less player choice because of it.
2)Stupidest leveling concept to date.(Vassal xp)
3)Easily exploited and weak engine. Bad player/cheating base.
4)Lag, graphics, and need to cover death items and no drop items.(Vice versa for the no drop items)


Planetside
Pros:
1)No need to level to compete. High sys req but alot of people play. Easily fine a fight with instant action and shuttle drops. Player customization without punishment(ala ac life magic).
2)Gamplay is unique. Hide in a bunker, hop in a tank etc. Graphics are incredible, and enviroments interactive.
3)Use true player skill to determine outcome of victory. Unlike Ac you aim to shoot, not press a stupid button and sit there. With distraction and common sense I took out a max suit with my combat engineer.
4)Everyone can get access to the items and weapons. No more questing for a simple item that is suppose to balance the whole game. The game is balance because SOE knows what they're doing. For those of you that only played beta they address the strenghts and weaknesses of each empire.
5)Destroyable items/enviroment. Hack enemy vehicles and use them to sabotage their plans. Destroy their generator and make sure no one can spawn. Camp the spawn and destroy your enemies etc.

Cons:
1)High system reqs.
2)Might be some lag if you're on 56k or lower end of machine.
3)Some disc recently because of large player base.
4)I can't think of anything right now but each game has it's pros and cons, not trying to be biased.

To conclude you can see my frustration with Asheron's Call. I won't go into saying how to fix Asheron's Call. It's easily fixable, but Turbine is incompetent.

Anyway concerning Planetside, it's not without it's problems like any other game. There might be a few disconnects since the Gamespot free trial alot of people are playing. The key word though is accesibility. Anyone can literally start fighting after a half hour or hour in the VR training. You compete with skill, not levels. All the useless questing to get the uber item is gone. There are however sort of capture the flag items, in alien caverns, that you can fight for.

It would take the average gamer an hour to understand the Planetside system and compete with skill not levels. Leaving you with many more weapons/items to explore for just the right depth of gameplay. (Like engineers can fix vehicles, turrets, terminals, deployed units etc)

It would take you literally months and boring PVE, macroing or stupid vassal chain xp to be able to compete in AC DT. Not to mention most of the skill is now gone. Or a newbie might quit from utter frustration, who can blame em. All these barriers thrown in before you get to the fun makes for a waste of time.(Take for example the need to make arrows.)

If Turbine got their finger out of there ass, they would of figured this out by now. Put a NPC in the middle of town that sells all the arrows ever made, at a competitive price. (ALA hunt for money/items to get arrows.) No more stupid crafting things.

Anyway thanks for reading. If you haven't tried Planetside and are tired of AC's **** I suggest you waste no time and take advantage of the gamespot free 30 day trial.

[Trai]

The game is balanced because soe knows what they're doing? Hehe funny, you need to try SWG while you're at it. =P

Anyway, Planetside is fun, I liked it a lot. I just got tired of a few things:

1) There is no point to combat beyond the fun. Take a base, let the next group of enemies come behind you and retake it so you can go back and take it again.

Compared to AC where taking and holding an area (usually a dungeon now but in the past it's also been towns) can actually be important and letting the enemy come in and level isn't an option you want to consider.

2) While Planetside isn't experience driven, certain classes will still have problems getting the little bit of combat experience they need to develop their character. Why is that? Because of the dev team's decision to not allow a person who softened a kill to get experience if someone else wanders by and finishes the kill before you do. Combat engineers are an excellent example of this. Also, tank drivers not getting experience from the kills of ungrouped gunners is another problem.

Experience chains in AC despite their many faults... do allow classes which would otherwise have no means of levelling a means of doing so. Also, there are many, many ways to level a character beyond experience chains (ex, I've a mule which has levelled almost exclusively on white wasp wings).

Beyond that the character customizations of AC are right on par with the customizations of PS. Perhaps AC's is a bit better.

3) Zerging works much, much better for Terrans than either of the other classes thanks to the Cycler which requires no certifications to get and yet is still better than almost any other close range combat weapon that other factions can get (one exception being the jackhammer which is godly, yummy but rather costly in terms of certs).

Racial comparisons in AC are just as bad. There is NO reason to make a character as an Aluvian. You make a character as a Sho only if you intend to use the Unarmed skill, otherwise, you go Gharu to get the free tinkering which is very nice to have.

4) Terran maxes parking in the stairs of respawn towers with grenade bounce on high so that people are killed as they spawned. DC maxes parked in corners of rooms in bases or towers mowing people as they spawn.

Lifestone and portal camping doesn't compare to this annoyance. I can't think of much of anything that does, actually.

5) Stealth doesn't really work in PS. I had a video card which basically revealed stealthers to me from any distance at all times if they so much as turned their head... not moved. Turned their head. Which they have to do in order to prepare their next movement. Devs were aware of the problem and never fixed it.

This would be like Life magic prots not working in AC, so there's really not much in the way of comparison. Perhaps deception, creature and person assess being useless (the last even being forced on one race).

6) As much as you like the aiming... it cause me issues physically. Repetitive stress syndrome is bad. PS forces you to constantly use your mouse in order to play the game effectively.

AC's system is a lot more friendly to a pvper in the long term.

7) The graphics in PS were intense to the point of framerate issues... even with my best computer (700 odd mb of ddr ram, 1.13 ghz amd processor and 128mb ddr radeon 9700pro).

AC has serious internet latency issues but very little graphic issues on even my lower end systems.



Really though, they're both very good games. If pvp actually meant something in PS.. I'd do it. I really did love driving my vanguard ... especially off cliffs, hehe. (I basically had to play a tank driver because of my RSS issues.)

[Unstoppable]

You could benefit from an upgrade to play PS =p. Anyway thanks for sharing your opinion, you do bring up some valid points about PS problems. The overall objective of each game is to achieve fun. So to each his own, personally I can't stand AC because of the leveling and tedious tasks required to pvp. I'll stick to PS

:p

[kryptik]

What is the point of this thread? Do you want charrets in AC or something?

Also AC requires alot more skill in PvP than PS.

[Unstoppable]

Tell me how Ac requires more skill than PS? In PS you don't use levels to kill people like in AC. You have to freaking aim and pay attention to where you're going.

In AC, 15%+ of you're game time you're running around with autorun.

All you do as a mage is vuln and fire a bolt. Sure you might pop a few exlixirs or stam to heal, or try to drain. It's all repetitive. Or even use a weapon, but all you do is press a button sit back and watch you're health and you're enemies health. The computer does all the calculations.

Can't be doing that in PS. You have to watch out for snipers if you repair a turret, or air vehicles if you're running around on foot etc. The combat and your options costantly change because of what happens in the battlefied.

Like I said. It is a fact that AC requires tedious leveling to pvp. PS does not that is why it is superior in my book.

[RocDynasty]

Yeah what is the point of this thread, to brag and make AC look like an underdog to Planetside?

[Unstoppable]

Considering your postj, you did not read the first few lines of the first post in this thread.

[kryptik]

What is the point of this thread? If we wanted to play an FPS we would go play Counter-Strike for free, not 12.99 a month.